From the New York Times bestselling author of Churchill, a towering historical biography, available for the first time in paperback. William Gladstone was, with Tennyson, Newman, Dickens, Carlyle, and Darwin, one of the stars of nineteenth-century British life. He spent sixty-three of his eighty-nine years in the House of Commons and was prime minister four times, a unique accomplishment. From his critical role in the formation of the Liberal Party to his preoccupation with the cause of Irish Home Rule, he was a commanding politician and statesman nonpareil. But Gladstone the man was much more: a classical scholar, a wide-ranging author, a vociferous participant in all the great theological debates of the day, a voracious reader, and an avid walker who chopped down trees for recreation. He was also a man obsessed with the idea of his own sinfulness, prone to self-flagellation and persistent in the practice of accosting prostitutes on the street and attempting to persuade them of the errors of their ways. This full and deep portrait of a complicated man offers a sweeping picture of a tumultuous century in British history, and is also a brilliant example of the biographer’s art.

Margaret Bertha Synge (1861-1939) was a British author of books for children at the end of the nineteenthand beginning of the twentieth-century. Her works include: Cookas Voyages (1892), The Story of Scotland (1896), A Child of the Mews (1897), A Book of Scottish Poetry (edited) (1897), Brave Men and Brave Deeds (1898), A Helping Hand (1898), Life of Gladstone (1899), The Queenas Namesake (1899), Life of General Charles Gordon (1900), The Story of the World for the Children of the British Empire (5 vols., 1903), The Struggle for Sea Power (1903), The Awakening of Europe (1903), The Worldas Childhood: Stories of the Fairies Simply Told (2 vols., 1905), A Short History of Social Life in England (1906), Molly (1907), Martha Wren: A Story of Faithful Service (1908), The Great Victorian Age for Children (1908), Great Englishwomen (1911), A Book of Discovery (1912), Simple Garments for Children (1913), Simple Garments for Infants (1914), The Reign of Queen Victoria (1916) and The Story of the World at War (1926).

All history, says Emerson, "resolves itself into the biographies of a few stout and earnest persons." These remarks find exemplification in the life of William Ewart Gladstone, of whom they are pre-eminently true. His recorded life, from the early period of his graduation to his fourth premiership, would embrace in every important respect not only the history of the British Empire, but very largely the international events of every nation of the world for more than half a century. William Ewart Gladstone, M.P., D.C.L., statesman, orator and scholar, was born December 27, 1809, in Liverpool, England. The house in which he was born, number 62 Rodney Street, a commodious and imposing "double-fronted" dwelling of red brick, is still standing. In the neighborhood of the Rodney Street house, and a few years before or after the birth of William E. Gladstone, a number of distinguished persons were born, among them William Roscoe, the writer and philanthropist, John Gibson, the sculptor, Doctor Bickersteth, the late Bishop of Ripon, Mrs. Hemans, the poetess, and Doctor James Martineau, Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Manchester New College, and the brother of Harriet Martineau, the authoress.

In 1998 an international conference brought Gladstone scholars together to mark the centenary of his death, and some of the papers presented on that occasion are published in this volume. They cover topics such as parliamentary reform and free trade.